Michael Kent Wilkins

Notes:

Birth:
Name: Wilkins
Gender: Male
Birth Date: 10 Oct 1911
Birth Place: Eden, Graham, Arizona
Father: Alroy Wilkins
Mother: Phebe Hdancock
FHL Film Number: 2135124
Reference ID: item 1
Arizona, Births and Christenings, 1909-1917. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013.

Buried:
Burial:
Miles Cemetery
Miles
Runnels County
Texas, USA
Plot: Section F Lot 11 1/2
Find A Grave Memorial# 106180288

Ralph married Ollie Lee Taylor 8 Sep 1933. Ollie (daughter of Thomas Lonzo Taylor and Tiney Janie Chapman) was born 14 Apr 1918, Greenville, Hunt, Texas, United States; died 17 Aug 2001; was buried 17 Aug 2001, Miles, Runnels, Texas, United States. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Buried:
Burial:
Miles Cemetery
Miles
Runnels County
Texas, USA
Plot: Section F Lot 11 1/2
Find A Grave Memorial# 106180289

Notes:

Buried:
Burial:
Eden Cemetery
Eden
Graham County
Arizona, USA
Plot
Find A Grave Memorial# 16530637

Alroy married Phoebe Caroline Hancock 20 Apr 1897, Graham, Arizona, United States. Phoebe (daughter of Elijah Hancock and Eliza Caroline Rudd) was born 6 Aug 1876, Long Valley, Kane, Utah Territory, United States; died 22 Mar 1923, Eden, Graham, Arizona, United States; was buried 24 Mar 1923, Eden, Graham, Arizona, United States. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Buried:
Burial:
Eden Cemetery
Eden
Graham County
Arizona, USA
Plot:
Find A Grave Memorial# 16530643

Notes:

Married:
Name Alroy Wilkins
Spouse's Name Phebe C. Hancock
Event Date 20 Apr 1897
Event Place Carter, Graham, Arizona, United States
"Arizona Marriages, 1865-1949," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FQ29-VLX : accessed 23 September 2015), Alroy Wilkins and Phebe C. Hancock, 20 Apr 1897; citing Carter, Graham, Arizona, United States, reference P. 320, index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City; FHL microfilm 2,109,910.

Notes:

Buried:
Burial:
Garden of Memories
Camp Wood
Real County
Texas, USA
Plot: Left side of main drive
Find A Grave Memorial# 18321702

Died:
Name: Thomas L Taylor
Birth Date: 16 Jul 1872
Birth Place: Navarro, Texas
Gender: Male
Race: White
Residence: Camp Wood, Real, Texas
Father: Alford Taylor
Age at Death: 78
Death Date: 16 Feb 1951
Death Place: Mereta, Tom Green, Texas, USA

Thomas married Tiney Janie Chapman 5 May 1917, Texas, United States. Tiney (daughter of John Morris Chapman and Texanna Belle Dameron) was born 10 Sep 1888, Llano, Llano, Texas, United States; died 18 Jun 1972; was buried , Camp Wood, Real, Texas, United States. [Group Sheet]

Notes:

Life Story of Alexander Wilkins Jr.
Contributed By Robert Givens · 17 February 2014 · 0 Comments
THE LIFE OF ALEXANDER WILKINS JR.
(25 Sep 1854 – 8 Sep 1893)
By Robert E. Givens (8-2011)

My great grandfather, Alexander Wilkins, Jr., was the first born child of Alexander Wilkins and Alice Malena Barney. His father was baptized in 1845 in Canada and his mother was baptized in the 1843 – 1845 era probably in Nauvoo. On 11 Dec 1853 his parents married in Provo, Utah after their families immigrated to Utah. On the 25th of September 1854 Alexander Wilkins Jr. was born – the first child of his parent’s union.

His parents had built a house on the block they first unhitched at when they arrived in Provo and it was here that Alexander was raised until sometime before 1870 when they moved to Mona, Juab, Utah. This was still wild territory and his father fought in three Indian wars (Walker War, Tintic War, and the Black Hawk War.)

On 8 Oct 1873 in Mona, Juab, Utah the then 19 year old, Alexander, married 18 year old Charlotte York Carter. She was the daughter of William Furlsbury Carter and Sarah York. Her family had first settled in Provo, where Charlotte was born 2 Jan 1856, and moved from Provo to Mona when Charlotte was 6 and then to Santaquin four years later.

Alex and Charlotte set up their home in Mona for the first 6 years of their married life. While there, they were blessed with three children. Gustella Arminta Wilkins was born 13 Aug 1874, Alroy Alexander Wilkins was born 20 Apr 1876 and Edwin Granville Wilkins was born 14 Jun 1879. Sometime after Edwin was born and before the 1880 census on 10th of June 1880, the Wilkins moved to Santaquin. They lived in town near Charlotte’s brothers, Edward and Edwin Carter. Alexander was listed as a teamster, which means he drove wagons hauling freight. It appears that they must have lived in the center of the community as most of the neighbors had jobs as miners, laborers, and teamsters and only one was a farmer. (Little else is known of those days in Santaquin.) They had one more child while living there when William Edson was born on 19 July 1881. A special event occurred on 24 Jan 1882 when Alexander and Charlotte traveled to Salt Lake City to be sealed in the Endowment House by Daniel H Wells. This must have been a special occasion as it would have required several days to travel to and from Salt Lake City, and would have been no easy task as this was in the dead of winter.

Life in Santaquin must have been difficult and the winters were especially cold, so in 1883 they volunteered to move and settle in Arizona. At that time they were the parents of 4 little children. The trip from Utah to the Gila Valley in Arizona required about six weeks of travel and naturally called for a lot of hardships and sacrifices. They made the trip in the old covered wagons drawn by horses. While they were not molested by the Indians while making this long trek, people traveling ahead of them and people who followed them were. This company consisted of thirty-three people. The mother of Charlotte, Sarah York Carter, was one of the group. She was 72 years old at the time and she drove the team on one of the wagons all the way. Others of the group were William A. Carter and Edwin L Carter, brothers of Charlotte and children of Sarah, and their families. Also in the group were William Dale and his sister, Mary Ann Miller and her family. She came to join her husband who had come earlier to establish a home for his family. Traveling with them were Joseph Greenhalgh and family and A. M. Dixon and family.

They left Santaquin on the 10th of September 1883 and arrived at Smithville, Arizona on October 22, 1883. At that early day, living conditions in the Gila Valley were very primitive. Pima had only been settled three or four years and was called at that time Smithville. It was to Smithville that Alexander and his family settled.

Many of the houses were made of cottonwood logs. Some of them only had dirt floors and dirt roofs. They lived in Smithville about 5 years. During this time they had to contend with many hardships and privations of settlers in a newly settled area. They also had to deal with the Apache Indians and Mexican Renegades. Alex would have to work hard all day and stand guard at night, taking his turn with the other men of the little town, watching lest the Indians come upon them and take their lives. It was a nerve-trying ordeal for all of them. They kept tobacco and coffee around at all times so if an Indian came by and asked for something they would have something to give. To refuse could cost you your life.

For a short time after their arrival in Smithville, the Wilkins family lived in their wagon boxes until a piece of land could be cleared and a house built. As Alexander was a teamster, he and his brothers-in-law, William and Edwin Carter went to the Graham Mountains to cut timbers. They then hauled the lumber back with their teams and wagons

Alex began building their house at once on the outskirts of the community. (In fact he helped sign the petition on 2 July 1884 requesting the Territorial Legislature to incorporate Pima, which had some 520 inhabitants at that time.) . This one room house was located on the Anderson farm across the wash from the main community. They had been asked to locate there to get that part of the town settled. When he completed his home, he moved Charlotte and their 4 children in. This was just two days before the birth of their fifth child, Parley Pratt Wilkins, who was born on Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 1883. One of the reasons Charlotte’s mother, Sarah York Carter, had come along on this journey to the Gila Valley was the birth of this child, which happened just 3 weeks after they arrived. Parley was a most welcome addition to their growing family of children.

There were log stockade houses in the mesquite thicket and new ones being built. New settlers during this time found Pima a beehive of activity when they arrived. Men were busy clearing land, planting grain and other food crops to care for the fast growing community. As it was dangerous to live that far out of town, the Wilkins family moved from the Smithville area of the community into what would become Pima proper shortly after arriving there.

While in Pima, on 20 Oct 1885, Alexander and Charlotte both received their patriarchal blessings. On the 4th of July 1886 they were blessed with another child, Sarah Melena Wilkins. It was also about this time on 21 March 1886,that Alexander was ordained a Seventy by John Moody. During this time Alexander helped to burn the lime for the first brick home in Pima. He had been out south of town working all week and came home Saturday night. A Brother Thurston came to take his place at the lime kiln. Alex reminded him that it seemed to be a likely place for the Indians to come, as the settlers had horses there. Soon after this the Indians did ambush and kill this man. His death surely cast a gloom over the community and the entire valley, as this good man was well and favorably known by all these early pioneers. The Wilkins family was especially thankful that their father had not been on guard that night.

Five years after settling in Pima the Wilkins family moved into a new community below Pima called Matthewsville. It was there on 7 Jan 1888 that Alexander was ordained a High Priest by Wm D. Johnson. My grandmother, Christa Lillis Wilkins, was born to them on Christmas Day, 25 Dec 1888. (Ironically this was the third straight child born to them on a major holiday – Thanksgiving, 4th of July and Christmas.)

On 2 September 1892 Alexander was called by John Henry Smith to be the bishop of the Curtis Ward near Eden – on the north side of the Gila River, northwest of Pima. Most of the people lived in scattered conditions on their respective farms which were irrigated from the Gila River. As there was no place there to live, their house was moved across the Gila River to Eden. Here he lived for only a year and he did a lot to help develop that community. During that time he secured the title to the spring above Eden which still supplies the town with drinking water.

Water became the cause of death for Alexander. Around the 1st of September 1884 Alexander was bringing some flour from a mill in Pima and had to swim his horse across the Gila to get home. He must have had his head go under the water and taught typhoid fever from the water. The Indians upstream apparently had the disease and it was carried down the valley in the water. On 3 September 1884 he passed from mortality. In addition to the grief occasioned by his passing their son Edson was also very low with the same disease. Their baby Lottie (who had been born 17 Mar 1892 prior to their leaving Matthewsville) was very ill from complications following a severe attack of whooping cough. So Charlotte was really loaded down with burdens and crosses.

Alexander’s body was buried the next day, 9 Sep 1893, across the Gila River in Glenbar in the Glenbar Cemetery. Fifty years later, in 1943, Charlotte was buried next to her husband. Today a beautiful tombstone stands as a memorial to the lives of these brave pioneers of the West.

Sources:
1. “Brief History of Charlotte York Carter Wilkins” (Given over the radio in Safford, Arizona, by President Harry L Payne, president of the Arizona Temple.)
2. “Alexander Wilkins Jr.,” in Mt. Graham Profiles, Graham County Arizona 1870 – 1977, Vol. 1, pub. Graham County Historical Society, 1977, pp. 361-2.
3. Pioneer Town – Pima Centennial History, pub. Eastern Arizona Museum and Historical Society Inc. of Graham County, Pima, Arizona, 1979, various articles - pp. 93 - 96, 166

Family Search Memories

Buried:
Burial:
Glenbar Cemetery
Glenbar
Graham County
Arizona, USA
GPS (lat/lon): 32.91972, -109.87375
Find A Grave Memorial# 72918589

Died:
Alexander Wilkins died unexpectedly on 8 September 1893 in Matthews, Graham, Arizona after contracting typhoid fever. He was only 38 years of age. The family lived in Eden, Arizona and needed flour so he had crossed the Gila River to go over to Matthewsville to get some. The river was swollen and while crossing back, he fell in and swallowed some river water. The Indians up the river had typhoid and he contracted it and died.

Source from familysearch.org

Alexander married Charlotte York Carter 8 Oct 1873, Mona, Juab, Utah, United States. Charlotte (daughter of William Furlsbury Carter and Sarah York) was born 2 Jan 1856, Provo, Utah, Utah, United States; died 24 Jan 1943, Tucson, Pima, Arizona, United States; was buried 27 Jan 1943, Glenbar, Graham, Arizona, United States. [Group Sheet]

Elijah married Eliza Caroline Rudd 25 Dec 1867. Eliza (daughter of Erastus Harper Rudd and Caroline Bradford) was born 18 Dec 1850, Harris Grove, Pottawattamie, Iowa, United States; died 11 May 1895, Payson, Utah, Utah Territory, United States; was buried 12 May 1895, Payson, Utah, Utah Territory, United States. [Group Sheet]

Other Events:

• Military: 1861-1865, Illinois; Name Alfred B. Taylor Side Union Regiment State/Origin Illinois Regiment Name 14 Illinois Infantry 14th Regiment, Illinois Infantry Company H Rank In Private Rank Out Private Film Number M539 roll 89
• Residence: 1880, Johnson, Texas, United States; 5th Justice's Precinct - 1880 US Census - farmer
• Residence: 1890, Navarro, Texas, United States; Name: Alford B . Taylor State: TX County: Navarro County Township: Pct 8 Ed. 160 Year: 1890 Page: 001 Database: TX 1890 Veterans Schedule Ancestry.com. Texas, Compiled Census and Census Substitutes Index, 1820-1890 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 1999.

Notes:

Buried:
Burial:
Lakeview Cemetery
Marietta
Love County
Oklahoma, USA
Find A Grave Memorial# 14205588

Alfred married Mary Frances Hale 22 May 1873, Cumby (Blackjack Grove), Hopkins, Texas, United States. Mary (daughter of William Hale and Emily Campbell) was born 1850, Brewer, Pike, Arkansas, United States; died 15 May 1892, Corsicana, Navarro, Texas, United States. [Group Sheet]

John married Texanna Belle Dameron Abt 1875, Llano, Llano, Texas, United States. Texanna (daughter of James Patterson Dameron and Tina A Fisher) was born 22 Aug 1854, Jack, Texas, United States; died 20 Feb 1913, Menard, Texas, United States; was buried , Menard, Texas, United States. [Group Sheet]